Variety is the spice of life.

  On Wednesday evening a 101 year old mother of a guy from one of my chaplaincies had died. I was told that she demanded to be sent off "without a ripple". "Have a small funeral and send me off in the cheapest of boxes." My friend rang yesterday and asked me could I lead such a funeral on Friday (today) at 2:30 p.m. I went to his place at about 5:30 p.m. and was still there at 9 p.m. We had talked about his life and his family's life. He had shown me photo album after photo album. I arrived home and ate my evening meal at around 10 p.m.

During the night, when I ought to have been sleeping, I thought about how I would lead a funeral with just him, me and a friend there. I came to the office early, all dressed up in my suit pants and worked on the funeral for an hour or so. I then visited his workplace (he is actually now retired) and wandered around talking to various people.

I came back to the office and sweated over the eulogy bit. How do I approach that? It all clicked at about 12:30 p.m. and I knew the approach I should take and began writing madly. As I was preparing to leave a woman came to me asking about how we could help the "occupy Octagon" crew and talked about Christmas Day dinner. We conversed, and then I put tie and suit jacket on to rush nervously out to the crematorium.

There was me, my friend, his friend and the funeral director. We stood around the coffin and I led in an intimate, relatively informal but reverent ceremony. I was so pleased because I managed to prompt the son who had not wanted to say anything, to share a story and express his feelings. At the end I spent some time talking with the son's friend who had come. Her mum had died six weeks earlier and she shared the circumstances of her death, her anger and grief. In spite of my nervousness, everything went very well.

I jumped back in the car and went to the firestation for a cup of tea. They got a call and in spite of teasing about the "corporate look" I went with them. A big sign above a store had collapsed in high winds and they had to do something with it to make sure it did not hurt anyone. With the help of their big ladder they lowered to ground level, folded it up and put it away in a store room.

I came back to the Church and now I am in my office changing out of my suit and tie into my jeans getting ready for our Friday night drop-in centre. Tonight I'll eat sandwiches and savaloys and talk with alcoholics, drug addicts, unemployed and people with mental health problems. I will probably play pool, play heaps of table tennis and do dishes, before going home just after 10p.m.

My work is NEVER boring.

Blah.. blah.. blah.. talking, talking talking.

What a mixed up day?
I spent a good deal of today in conversation at the church. We have Space2B open from eleven until three on Wednesdays - that is four hours. I had all sorts of plans to stay clear so that I could do chaplaincy hours, and other urgent work, but one conversation led to another, and to another and I got to feel that was where my responsibility lay. Different people and different groups seemed to be needing my contact.  During this time I took time out to vacuum my office - I had visitors coming and wanted it reasonably tidy. Being a plumber from long ago, I also took time to fix a tap in the men's toilets at the Church which had been leaking for months. It does feel good to do just some normal physical stuff.

As well as some other work responding to emails and stuff related to Christmas dinner, answering phone enquiries and such, I had been wrestling with Advent readings. I find Advent Sunday so difficult.  I believe there are many mythical, cultural and ancient aspects to the traditional readings. This makes it extremely hard to communicate something with integrity in a short time that is meaningful and helpful to modern listeners. I have an Advent Sunday Church Radio Service to record tomorrow afternoon, and even though I have read all sorts of stuff about the set readings, I really don't know where to begin! How do I put this together in time? My daughter usually helps me, but she has gone on holiday.

At three I had an appointment with a couple whose wedding I conduct on Saturday week. We sat and talked wedding plans and made decisions about that.  The groom is in one of my chaplaincy work places and his bride-to-be works in the Hospital Emergency Department where my wife does voluntary work. It was a good hour together.

After they left I thought it was too late to do chaplaincy, the newspaper people get too busy, but I decided to ring a man from the there whose mother was dying. He was not home, but later rang back. She was not expected to last long he reported, he had been called out in the early hours of the morning. We talked for well over half an hour on the phone and again I thought it was good useful conversation.  Shortly after I got home tonight he rang again and told me she had died.  Now I have to fit some kind of funeral and pastoral care for him into my already packed week.

A whole mixture in one day...
Here is just a sample of conversation topics throughout the day...

• We have unemployed people and people with mental health and sometimes intellectual disability call into Space 2B. I talked with them about their life, their living situations, their hassles and listened as they pontificated about various things. There is a group who are opening up to me a bit more every time we share. I had conversations with the group and with individuals. 
• A visitor from Australia chatted about NZ and asked questions about Dunedin.
• There is a group of friends who meet regularly at Wednesday Space2B and we catch up with each other on what we have been doing in the week and discuss news topics and such.
• One of my friends, a very supportive elder who has had some health problems called in at Space2B. He talked about recent events, hospital tests and then told me they had told him not to drive for four months. He is an active man I often lean on, who is just "there" if you need him. He is quite devastated by this limitation. We talked about this.
• There is the "Occupy the Octagon" protesters in the Octagon (the centre of town) and the guy we have looking after Space2B had been to talk with them. We conversed about them and their difficulties and message. We discussed whether we as a church could help them in any way. We had no conclusions.
• I discussed wedding plans with the couple, which led along various topics about such things as family, traditions and practicalities of the wedding.
• With the man whose mum died I talked his mum's past life, his health concerns, his plans for the future, his feelings, as well as his thoughts for the funeral.
• I had a brief email exchange about the night shelter.
• I answered several phone call enquiries about our christmas dinner.
• A drop-in centre guy called and showed me his latest DVD/ Blue Ray player purchase.

From the superficial to the deep. From joking together to hearing of sadness and loss. From wedding plans to funeral plans. From big issue community and political concerns to individual challenges. All these and today I did not move from the Church building.

I struggle to fit it all in, but it certainly is never boring! Now what on earth am I going to say on the radio? Oh well it will come.

Bring back the stocks

It is Tuesday and I am stopping briefly for coffee. I have to let off steam, I have been brewing all day yesterday. While eating my porridge at breakfast I browsed the newspaper. On the front page there's a story of arrogant people filling up a skip belonging to somebody else. These visitors to town were emptying out the flat of their brother who had been killed in a tragic accident early in the week. They hired a skip but other people kept putting rubbish in it (Perhaps local students or landlords also cleaning out flats) and abused them when they asked them not to! This is in my book, robbery. The people had to pay out for another skip. Also on the front page vandals set fire to tents and other property at the Thyme Festival in Alexandra in Central Otago. It happened last year also. Another story covered the bashing of two young English workers in Wanaka by a group of around 12 teenagers. Inside the paper there were other examples of arrogant, ignorant sometimes alcohol induced behaviour. These stories involved drunk driving, vandalism and violence. What do you do to stop such behaviour?

One of the problems is that among the crowd such people mix in this sort of behaviour is positively reinforced. "Ha ha... I got away with using another person's skip. Good fun!" "I lit the tent on fire again... what a blast!"  I have heard it in our drop-in centre and Space2B ... "Ha ... ha... I have a bad habit of hitting policemen... silly bastards." and the group giggles in admiration. Even if such people are caught by the authorities and brought before the courts, that is almost a badge of honour amongst their peers! I see guys and girls come into drop-in centre and boast, "I went to court today! Just got fined!" or "Just got community service... yeah right?" Amongst their peers they are heroes! What is needed is for them to be exposed to a wider group of society who will tell them what dirt bags they are.
Bring back the stocks... well something like them.
In olden days they had stocks. Bad guys were put in stocks in the middle of town and the passing people could throw rotten fruit at them or abuse them and tell them what they think of their actions. I say, "Bring back the stocks!" ... or some modern equivalent of them. These guys need to be told that their actions are not laudable. To be told that just by the court system is not working. Why not make them sit in the middle of town with a written description of their crime in front of them, so that they can see that most people think they are not heroes, but crap?

I know I sound like a right-wing fascist but sometimes amongst some of the people I mix with I despair. So many are on a downward spiral, and maybe some tough love is needed to get them on the right track? I mentioned before a young woman I know who is a drug and alcohol addict who uses and abuses people and the system to survive and steals to feed her lifestyle. She is in hell and heading downhill fast. The courts just piddle around with little bits of sentences. She thinks there is nothing much wrong with her lifestyle. Would it hurt her to be made to sit in town with a description of what she does for all to read? Nothing else seems to work. The judges words fall on deaf ears. The love and care of others is just abused. Perhaps she needs made to go cold turkey and shocked out of the rut she has got herself into?

I am semi-serious about this approach and maybe expressing frustration and just stirring. But something like this could have merit. Some way of communicating unmistakably that this behaviour is NOT OK needs to be invented.

Thank God its Sunday night

I get a bit stressed in my ministry work. It is OK, it really is part of who I am. I go off to sleep at nights only to wake an hour or so later and in my head I begin to "work"... stew; think of all I have to fit in; remember things I haven't done and should have done; think of all that could go wrong in the day ahead; ... so I lose sleep. This does not help my frame of mind. I generally cope, however, and few people know the lack of confidence, the stress and the mixed feelings going on inside. I had one of those grossly disturbed nights on Wednesday night. I had a full day on Thursday and at 10 a.m. I had to fit in "supervision" with my counsellor type lady. Well I tried to get heaps done in the office before I went, and ran most of the distance from my office to hers. I got lost in the building looking for her office. A man came out of his work room and took one look at me and said, "You will be needing 'Psychological services' that's their door there!" How did he know that?  When I got in her room I plonked down and was totally uninhibited, blurting out all my frustrations and annoyances. When I stopped to draw a breath, she said, "Well that's a lot off your chest all in one go?" During the next three quarters of an hour she challenged me. I had talked about retirement. She said, "You won't make retirement the way you're going. I don't want to visit you in hospital!" She told me that with the way I see my work, and the church "you are very alone." (though she likes the way I see things)  "Where do you get your strength from?" she asked. I thought I knew, but I don't think she understood or I think she felt it was inadequate. She told me to sort out where I was "flogging dead horses" and to stop doing it. "Pat them on the bum and leave them!" Anyway time was up and I went walking on my way to my most awkward chaplaincy. I do feel sorry for her trying to sort me out. Where am I flogging dead horses? I do not think things are as clear cut as she thinks. All my dead horses occasionally draw a breath.
Talking and doing
There have been meetings around here about poverty and about bridging the gap between rich and poor. Some of them I did not know about until it was too late and the others I have been too busy to attend. I know that there are two ways of working to help the needs of the poor. One is to share resources with them and help them in their situation. (e.g. Night Shelter, Habitat for Humanity and our Drop-in centre) The other is to work at changing the structures that make them poor in the first place and that makes sense. I think the people holding the meetings would feel that this is what they are doing. That is legitimate. I wished I had time to go, but I was too busy doing stuff for our Christmas dinner, the night shelter and such. I do get the feel still that a lot of people think they have done something for the poor when they have just talked about them!  Having said that, I could do with thinking more about the structures. Don't know where to start on that? I guess a good start would be with my vote in the election next Saturday.
Small things
I walked up "my" mountain last night. I always enjoy the walk. The scenes on the way and from the top are expansive. But as I neared the top I saw something beautiful. Up against a rock I saw this line up of small dainty blue flowers. How do they survive in the winds up there? I took a photo. This made me look at lots of small things. Mosses and fungi on rocks making colourful patterns. Lichen on trees. Little plants surviving beside the path. I realised that, as well as the expansive views there were these small patches of beauty to appreciate.  We often miss beautiful things and people in life, especially if they are "small".

Having a blue Christmas? Christmas Dinner Dunedin

Tomorrow a whole lot of advertisements will go out to various agencies informing them of our Christmas Day dinner.

The poster goes like this:

Having a blue Christmas?

If you are alone on Christmas day or need a Christmas day dinner

why not join us?

A group of us will be celebrating Christmas Dinner at the Church

you are welcome to be with us.

Where?: Church of Christ Community corner of St Andrew and Filleul Streets, Dunedin

When? : Christmas day beginning at 11:30 a.m. - around 1:45 p.m.

What?: Hot Christmas meal with Pavlova and plum pudding for dessert.

Christmas cake to finish off. 

Music and people to meet and enjoy.

How do I get there?: Transport is offered if you cannot get there.

Cost?: Free!

We ask that you book in by phoning the Church on (03) 4774848

This is our 23rd Christmas Day dinner. If you are in Dunedin and want to join us feel free to give us a call. If you know of people who could do with a special day then point them in our direction. The great thing is that already people's generosity has started and we will do it all again, and have fun doing it.

Why?

Can anyone tell me- Where the hell does someone in pain for months slowly dying of cancer fit into God's good creation? Life can really be a bugger sometimes.

I actually don't think there is an answer to the question, but having just come off the phone to my sister the question is screaming inside me.

Doing good

I read a page in the local paper about the famous basketball player Magic Johnson. Magic Johnson retired from basket ball when he contracted the HIV virus. Twenty years later he continues to live well, has done heaps for HIV sufferers and has been an inspiration to many. He said this recently....

"I have to tell you, I'm proudest of my life off the court. There will always be great basketball players who bounce that little round ball, but my proudest moments are affecting people's lives, effecting change, being a role model in the community." 


I recall Sir Edmund Hillary, that great Kiwi adventurer said something very similar about his heroic adventures. His efforts on Mt Everest and in the Antarctic were great, but his work among the Nepalese people he saw as an achievement of real value. I think these words are great. They remind us that the greatest thing we can do is make a difference in people's lives. All Black rugby players can learn from such greats who use the fame they have earned for good, and go on to do really good stuff after their career.

I could not help but contrast the above statement with one that was made in my office today. This young man comes to our drop-in activities and had tried to support a young woman who was a drug and alcohol addict. In spite of our warnings otherwise he thought she had changed and wanted to support her.  I think he thought we were being hard nosed and intolerant. Unfortunately he found out otherwise, it all turned to custard. "I feel really crap!" he said, "I thought doing good for others was meant to make you feel good?" I empathised with him and told him I thought his goodness could contribute in the long run. It is true though, sometimes you have to do good in the face of few returns.

I believe doing good is ultimately immensely rewarding. Even though you may feel like you are banging your head against a wall, you know you have tried to do something worthwhile.  Others just go through life paddling in the shallows.  Along the way there are times when you "feel like crap."

I know I have posted the last four days, like I have verbal diarrhea, but I just had to share this while it was fresh in my mind. Forgive me.